The Color of Hope (The Color of Heaven Series) Read Online Free PDF Page B

to chat on her phone, and I felt like an infatuated schoolgirl. I could barely contain my elation. I couldn’t wait for him to call.
    To my utter delight, my phone rang ten minutes later, and it was him.
    “Hey,” he said in a low and sexy voice that sent shivers across my body. “How about tonight?”
    “Tonight sounds great,” I replied with a smile.
    We arranged to meet for dinner.
    Over the next few months, Rick and I spent every possible waking moment together. On the weekends, we went hiking and biking, and for long drives up the coast. He introduced me to his friends, and I introduced him to mine. We enjoyed the same music and movies, and could barely keep our hands off each other.
    It was an instense physical relationship, and within six months, I had moved into his condo. It wasn’t a decision we consciously made; it simply evolved naturally because I stayed over most nights. When the lease expired on my apartment, it didn’t make sense to keep it.
    I was madly, crazily in love.
    And that’s when my life got really interesting.

Chapter Thirteen
    “ W HY HAVEN ’ T I met your sister?” Rick asked one night over dinner at one of our favorite sushi restaurants.
    “Because we live in LA and she lives in London.” My sister Becky was finishing a PhD in Classics at Oxford.
    “But she comes home for the summers, doesn’t she?” he asked. “Last year you disappeared for two weeks with your family, and you didn’t even invite me.”
    I sipped my wine. “You’d actually want to come?”
    Every summer, my family sailed from Bar Harbor, Maine up to Nova Scotia for Chester Race Week. It was a Moore family tradition, and a few years ago, Becky met her birth mother in Chester. It was a mind-boggling coincidence – or maybe it was destiny – that they both ended up in the same small town at the same time. A few puzzle pieces fell into place, and ever since then, our family considered the summer sailboat race in Nova Scotia to be a sacred thing.
    “But you don’t sail,” I said to Rick.
    “I could learn,” he replied. “I’m a quick study and a strong swimmer.”
    I laughed. “I certainly hope you wouldn’t end up doing the breast stroke in the chilly Atlantic. I’d never forgive myself.”
    He scooped up some rice with his chopsticks and grinned at me. “So I can come? I think your dad and I would hit it off.”
    Perhaps in that moment I might have suspected that Rick was into me because he thought my father could be the next president, but of course, that didn’t even enter my head. I was simply happy to know that my rich, gorgeous boyfriend wanted to meet and spend time with my family. It meant we were becoming more serious, and I couldn’t imagine a more desirable husband than Rick Fraser. Walking down the aisle to stand next to him and say ‘I do’ would be like hitting a home run, and I was a self-confident high achiever who believed I deserved nothing less.
    Most importantly, I trusted him.

Chapter Fourteen
    O N A WARM night in June of 2012, the telephone rang. It was my sister Becky calling from Nova Scotia where she had taken a summer job at the Chester Yacht Club.
    “How are you?” she asked. “It’s so great to hear your voice.”
    “It’s good to hear yours, too,” I replied as I moved into the living room and sat down on the black leather sofa.
    From Rick’s condo on the twenty-seventh floor, the view of the sunset never failed to amaze me. Vivid splashes of red and orange lit up the sky and reflected off the tinted glass windows of neighboring skyscrapers.
    “What’s up?” I asked. “How’s sailing school?”
    My sister was teaching kids to sail in summer day camps, and working on her college thesis on the side.
    “It’s a lot of fun,” she replied.
    “And how’s Kate?”
    Kate was the birth mother Becky had met a few years back. Since that life-changing event, she’d spent her summers in the vacant in-law suite in Kate’s home overlooking the water.
    Naturally